Digital Divide Widens Even More

[SOURCE: Seattle Post-Intelligencer, AUTHOR: Rev. Mark McCleary, National Black Church Initiative's Minister Alliance]
[Commentary] If the Bell telephone monopolies get their way, only a very few will ever experience the true promise of the 21st century's digital age. The giant telephone monopolies -- AT&T, Verizon, BellSouth and Qwest -- have launched an unprecedented push to effectively eliminate the only non-discrimination provision in federal law that prohibits redlining by any telecom company providing "video services." They ask legislators to bless a dubious business plan to bring their new TV services only to wealthy neighborhoods. The Bells argue they don't have the resources to comply with the non-discrimination provisions, which would require a far more ambitious build-out of fiber networks than they seem prepared to undertake. They claim local governments are too pesky, that negotiating local franchise agreements with them is unreasonably bureaucratic. The Bells earned five times the revenues as did the cable companies. Further, the telephone networks were built with decades of government subsidies. Their sheepish claim they should be held to a lower standard than the cable industry, which never had such government handouts, doesn't meet the laugh test. Further, Congress changed the laws in 1996 to invite Bell entry into the cable industry. Since then, the Bells have obtained local franchise agreements in California, Virginia, Florida, Utah and Texas -- a fact that debunks their complaint about local bureaucracy. When it comes to entry into the cable industry, the only one standing in the way of the telephone companies are the telephone companies themselves. America ranks 16th among industrialized nations in broadband deployment and our digital divide threatens to become a digital gulf. Rather than moving us to the "future ... faster," as its advertising campaign promises, the Bell cartel seems intent on moving us backward to a 19th-century reality where communications services are available only to the aristocratic class.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/253125_digitaldivide23.html